The invention relates to a vehicle for repairing damaged road surfaces, especially of pot holes, ruts, and unevenness, by compensating (filling, coating) with a filling material such as asphalt etc., comprised of a heating and scraping unit, a depositing device for the filling material, and a dynamically acting compacting device, arranged downstream of the depositing device, for compacting the scraped material and the added filling material downstream of the depositing device to a level that is higher than the level of the neighboring undamaged road surface and with a doctor blade unit, positioned downstream of the compacting device and, in operation, reciprocating transverse to the direction of travel for removal of deposited filling material downstream of the compacting device.
A repair vehicle of this kind is described in European application 560 021.
With the known vehicle according to European application 560 021 numerous experiments have been performed which experiments showed as a result that, depending on the application, on the repaired road surface air pockets of up to 2 cm depth will result with a total volume of approximately 3 to 5% and, therefore, non-reproducible compacting results are obtained.
The term "air pockets" refers to empty space within the work surface around a solid granular component or positioned adjacent thereto in any other orientation, which results from the solid particle being rolled or dragged by the horizontally acting doctor blade unit which reciprocates in a direction transverse to the direction of travel but also moves in the direction of travel whereby the remaining empty space is not filled downstream of the doctor blade unit by known vehicles.
The test results further showed that the air pockets with increasing granular size and granular distribution within the surface to be repaired would also increase.
Such air pockets cannot always and with all applications be eliminated with subsequent compacting work, for example, with a separate compacting device, with the required quality as well as personnel-independent in a reproducible and economic manner because in a subsequent compacting step the following important conditions can not always be fulfilled;
postponement, which, especially for thin layers, results in a fast, uncontrollable temperature reduction of the bituminous material to be compacted, which, in turn, makes it questionable that the desired degree of compacting will be reached, PA1 in order to eliminate the already present air pockets during a subsequent compacting step and in order to level the road surface to be repaired with the undamaged road surface in a flush manner, an exact, metered feed of material is required which must correspond to the total volume of the air pockets. PA1 a heating and scraping unit for removing excess road surface material from the road surface; PA1 a depositing device for a filling material; PA1 a first dynamic compacting device arranged downstream of the depositing device for compacting the filling material to a level higher than a level of an adjacent undamaged area of the road surface; PA1 a doctor blade unit connected to the depositing device so as to act downstream of the first dynamic compacting device onto the filling material for removing excess filling material, the doctor blade unit reciprocate horizontally in a direction perpendicular to the direction of travel; PA1 the doctor blade unit being vertically adjustable relative to the first dynamic compacting device and the depositing device; PA1 a second dynamic compacting device arranged downstream of the doctor blade unit. PA1 controlling a vertical position of the doctor blade unit such that the filling material compacted by the first compacting device is removed by the doctor blade unit only to a first level above a second level, resulting as an actual road surface level downstream of the second dynamic compacting device, that the amount of filling material, defined by the difference between the first and the second level, is sufficient to fill air pockets during compacting with the second dynamic compacting device. PA1 continuously measuring a vertical difference between the damaged road surface and the repaired road surface after compacting with the second dynamic compacting device; PA1 comparing the vertical difference to a preset nominal value to give a comparison value; PA1 adjusting the vertical position of the doctor blade unit as a function of the comparison value in order to match the vertical difference to the nominal value.
The aforementioned required conditions are not fulfillable for subsequent compacting steps and are economically not feasible.
It is an object of the invention to improve the known repair vehicle according to European application 560 021 such that with only smallest remaining air pockets a reproducible and homogenous compacting can be achieved which upon local repair of road surface damage results in a flush connection to the undamaged road surface and, in the case of new coatings of entire road surfaces, ensures a preset level and a preset layer thickness.